Besides direct donations to the rescue of your choice, there are some easy methods to help contribute to the support of some of our rescues. For example, Teresa Murphy mentions using the igive.com site when you make purchases online. This way, a part of your purchase is contributed by the company to a specified non-profit. More is explained at: http://www.cavyspirit.com/helping.htm

It happens I have to make a purchase from theferretstore (they carry Oxbow timothy pellets and offer free shipping over $25) and I wanted to remember to use the igive site this time.

Other people sometimes donate a portion of their sales to support rescues too (I think an acquaintence of Ladyveg makes cavy cosies and helps her rescue from sales).

So, I´m sticking this up here because last time I forgot. I hope to report it is an easy process. And I need pellets now!

I think the best way to use igive is to sign up just before you know you are going to purchase something. I&acute;m not sure, but there might be an extra dollar if someone refers you but I can&acute;t for the life of me figure out how I would do that.

Being a conservative person, I am not really sure how this thing works -- you install a small amount of software. It says you can uninstall it. I don&acute;t know if it will do popup ads while you are browsing the internet. But for people who do alot of online shopping, being able to donate a percentage of your purchases is a great idea and can do alot of good. I hope other people will give it a try.

Rachel - - I purchased some stuff for Bandit and Banana on ferretstore.com through igive and it shows $5.70 raised for Baraboo Guinea Pig Rescue. Then again - - total it was $.70 and $5 was through bonuses. Every little bit helps - - looks like you have your hands full again.

Diane has been sending me pretty regular checks from the guinea pig pouches that she sells. They are beautiful, and I can testify to her seamstress abilities and workmanship. Mine have lasted through weekly washings. Here is her website: Guinea Pig Cozies

Her little pig who passed away looked like a doll. They do look like very nice cosies.

I agree with her warning about cedar shavings but do feel pine shavings get a bum rap. If they are allowed to air before use, the phenols (the only thing that could cause any problem) evaporate, which would lessen or prevent any real or imagined ill effects.

Last edited by Lynx on Wed Jun 19, 2002 10:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Diane&acute;s cozy&acute;s are great. They are very well put together and adorable. Only one of mine gets any use though - - for some reason they haven&acute;t figured out there is more than one in their cage. They just both use the same one Diane is also great to work with!

I wondered where those cosies were coming from. I&acute;m going to check them out. I have a few pigs that won&acute;t eat them up in lieu of hay!

I don&acute;t mean to go off on a tangent here, but I agree with Lynx about the pine shavings. That and the fact that all pine shavings are NOT created equal. Various brands have different sizes of shavings and/or dust. Some are more absorbent. The worst are recycled-type pines which smell awful. I just tried another bag of a different variety. As soon as I opened the bag I was overwhelmed with the phenolic smell. I have left them open in the garage to air out for almost two weeks. The entire garage smells like pine in this heat and the shavings still smell awful. Don&acute;t think I&acute;ll be using them except for compost. The shavings I normally get are virtually dustless and don&acute;t have a strong odor at all. I&acute;m still experimenting with other beddings (esp. paper) alone or in combination on top of the pine. I still can&acute;t get over the carcinogenic carbonized dust in paper bedding nor the smell. My hands are black with carefresh. Plus it looks dirty all the time to me. Oh, the plight of the cavy owner!

Sorry, info from a Chemistry Prof. The carbon is definitely a problem when inhaled (like all aerosolized particles of foreign matter). The problem is, who would sponsor such a study? It&acute;s common knowledge that aspartame and other artificial sweetners turn into toxic compounds when combined with the hydrochloric acid in the stomach. The problem is, what is the effect of long-term allowable doses of a toxic material?

I&acute;ll see what I can find this morning. I wish I had the email of that guy.

These are some more finds, but I am not going to list them individually.

There is no doubt that the carbon dust is created during the sterilization process when heating the paper bedding. Of course, humans and rats aren&acute;t always consistent with their reactions to drugs, environmental reactions are generally similar. Humans, luckily seem less sensitive due to being able to move away from places/things we have adverse reactions to... One of the DVMs I work with is quite allergic to many things including chlorine (bleach), many phenolic disinfectants (not good since vets rely on them), and animal beddings (including anything with dust). Newspaper beddings are fairly neutral, but she reacts to them also. I&acute;m assuming the dust is the problem, since plain newspaper is fine.

I have come to the conclusion that certain cloths (towels, polarfleece, fake lambswool, etc.) are the least reactive to small animals and humans. Those with free-range pigs are probably doing the best job limiting hazardous exposure (unless they use certain disinfectants/cleaners in their home). Unfortunately, this is much more time and effort consuming than other prepared beddings. Mine are not bedded on fabric unless they are ill (or have asthma). I have to admit there is a time and effort compromise there in my home.

Last edited by Josephine on Thu Jun 20, 2002 2:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think one can combine towels and bedding pretty well. My pigs&acute; hangout area is towels, changed once daily -- I have lots of towels, shake them out and air dry them for a single reuse. The bathrooms have pine shavings covered with soft hay, also changed daily (new hay, wet parts of bathrooms removed). A few other towels in the living area are shaken out and washed when needed.

They seem pretty happy. Unless I&acute;m not quick enough with the vegetables.

Lynx, I signed up for igive.com and put Teresa as my rescue but when I try to make a purchse I get the following message:
___________________________________--
It´s not you, it´s your browser! To avoid shopping problems, Internet Explorer 6.0 cookie security settings must be set to enable third-party cookies.

I do exactly what they say and I get the same thing, I have even tried to restart my browser AND reboot my machine....get the same error script. Any ideas? I&acute;m thinking delete the program and try to reinstall but can&acute;t find the program listed (to be honest I didn&acute;t really do a through search though)

Please help, I have a lot of shopping to do and I am supposed to be shopping through My DH&acute;s site so that we get the kick back, my DH is gonna kill me when he finds out <LOL>

I just upgraded to 6.0 yesterday (I had a site that required 128 bit encryption). At the moment I can&acute;t help you. Be busy for 3 hours or so and will take a look. Hopefully someone can give you a hand. Damn frustrating when you want to help out.

The browser I was using also had a low security setting. You might want to try that and change a few other things to see if something else will work.

I&acute;d ask my DH for help but if he finds out I&acute;m handing over profitst that could be going to ur website he would be none to happy...althought I think we only deal with amazon so he might be ok with it as long as I told him I would only use it to shop at other stores. In the mean time I will try to reinstall.

Did you upgrade to IE 6.0 becuase I&acute;ve had that vs for a long time, so did you mean you upgraded the igive vs?

Damn it my whole computer is flipping out now. I keep hearing this clicking noise and my mouse just apears and disapears at will.